Review by Frank Plowright
While for people a diamond jubilee is sixty years, for institutions the term applies to 75 years, and Carl Barks created Uncle Scrooge in 1947, hence this celebration in 2022. It includes eleven full length tales spanning 1948 to 1965, four ten pagers, a Barks plot from 1994 and a further story drawn from an unused Barks script before ending with the single page gag in which Barks identified Scrooge’s age. The selections are each preceded by a Barks painting or the original cover to comic in which it first appeared, and accompanied by an authoritative essay, further paintings, and cover art from other respected talents gracing European reprints over the years.
Ask any fan of Barks’ work what his best stories were and they’ll supply different lists, but this isn’t labelled as a best of, which would be heavily weighted toward the exotic travel adventures, and instead aims for an overview. A decision also seems to have been made to make this a companion collection to the similarly oversized Uncle Scrooge: His Life and Times, as only ‘Back to the Klondike’ features in both. This heartbreaking masterpiece of Scrooge revisiting his past would probably make most top ten lists of Scrooge material, and this version follows the original colouring rather than what was considered state of the art in 1981.
The starting point isn’t Scrooge’s introduction, but his second appearance in a Donald Duck story, his purpose being to set in motion a comedy treasure hunt in a haunted castle. Slapstick predominates, but it’s exquisitely choreographed.
By almost any standards this is a collection of excellent stories covering Barks’ highlights. We see the introduction of Scrooge’s money bin, appearances from the Beagle Boys, Magica De Spell and Flintheart Glomgold, and there are trips to Atlantis and the moon, and giant robot robbers. However, attempting not to duplicate the content of the earlier volume means the best Flintheart Glomgold and Magica De Spell stories aren’t here, and neither are the best travel adventures. Also, while it’s nice to see a 1994 adventure written by Barks drawn by William Van Horn and Daan Jippes illustrating a never previously finished script about Scrooge inviting himself to dinner once too often, they’re fun, but not among his best.
Where this selection scores, though, is in highlighting the fun to be had with some later Uncle Scrooge stories, the consensus being that Barks was tailing off during the 1960s. Joyfully goofy mechanoids from ‘The Giant Robot Robbers’ feature on the sample spread, and a return to the Yukon to deal with a slippery conman is an absolute joy.
Anyone just buying this collection to relive their childhood or to supply it to their grandchildren will consider most of the above needless nitpicking. The Diamond Jubilee Collection is a treasure trove of immaculately plotted adventures, meticulously paced hilarity and faultless cartooning.
